Daily Discipleship - Day 308: Imitate Good
May 3, 2026
Daily Discipleship • Day 308 • Thursday, March 4, 2027
Imitate Good
3 John 1:11
Pleasant Springs Church • ps-church.com
Dallas Willard — philosopher at USC and author of The Spirit of the Disciplines, whose teaching on spiritual formation and virtue-formation gives deep roots to this brief Johannine command.
μιμοῦ
mimou · Greek NT“imitate / model yourself after”
mimeomai is the root of 'mimic' and 'mime'—to copy, to pattern oneself after another's example. John's instruction is intensely practical: choose your models carefully, because imitation shapes character. Moral formation happens by what we choose to repeat.
In the shortest letter in the New Testament, John gives one of the Bible's most compact directives on character formation: imitate good. The verb is present imperative—make this an ongoing habit. John's logic connects imitation directly to vision: those who do good have seen God; those who do evil have not.
Willard taught that spiritual formation is not passive—it is active patterning of the life after Christ. We are always imitating something or someone; the question is whether the model is good. Who or what are you currently modeling your inner life after? Deliberately choose Christ-shaped examples and begin imitating them today.
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